The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has freed more than 200 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority it held captive for months.

A commander in the Kurdish peshmerga forces, Major General Westa Rasul, told the AFP news agency on April 8, "We have received 227 Yazidis, among them women and children" in the northern province of Kirkuk.

Reuters news agency reported that all of those released were elderly or infirm, and also included two Christians.

The IS group swept through parts of northern Iraq in June, killing hundreds of male members of religious minorities, particularly Yazidis, while enslaving women and forcing small children to convert to Islam.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq fled their homes ahead of the IS advance.